Philippine Tobacco Expo Fires Up Health Advocates

UPDATE: Around 2, 000 health advocates, including cancer victims and health officials, gathered on Thursday to march against the global tobacco exhibition. Carrying banners with phrases like ‘smoking kills,’ they called on the Philippine government to monitor the events and ensure they do not promote tobacco products to the general public.

A giant tobacco exposition slated to begin Friday in Manila is igniting controversy as health groups try to snuff it out.

Advertised as an event to “promote and highlight new tobacco products,” and provide “unsurpassed networking opportunities,” ProTobEx and its sister show, Inter-tabac Asia, are together among the biggest conferences worldwide for the tobacco industry. Inter-tabac’s show will be the first of its kind held in Asia, exporting a three-decade-old German fair to what organizers describe as a “growing Asian market.” ProTobEx has credited the “vibrant tobacco industry” in the Philippines for its choice of location, as well as tobacco production’s important role in the country’s economy.

Advertisement

But health groups are objecting to the events, and to the tobacco industry overall, which they say is just trying to fire up efforts to market harmful products in a region where cigarettes are cheaper due to lower taxes, and where cigarette advertising is still permissible in some countries. They note that the Philippines is party to the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control and, according to the WHO, is obliged to make good on pledges to ban tobacco promotion, advertising and sponsorship.

“These events provide a platform for the industry to promote a deadly product in the Philippines and throughout Asia,” said Shin Young-soo, the WHO’s regional director for the Western Pacific.

The body has also raised concerns about the timing of the event, which comes just as the international organization is putting pressure on the Philippine government to raise tobacco taxes. According to WHO’s data, cigarettes in the Philippines are among the cheapest in Asia; averaging less than US 50 cents per pack, compared to US$1 in Laos, US$3 in Malaysia and US$9 in Singapore.

“We are deeply concerned about these events and how they could undermine the Department of Health’s advocacy for tobacco taxes in the Philippine legislature,” said Dr. Shin. “Promotion of tobacco products at this sensitive stage of the policy debate could be detrimental to achieving public health goals.”

Efforts to reach Philippines government officials for comment were unsuccessful.

According to a report from the Southeast Asia Initiative on Tobacco Tax (SITT) published last year, the Philippines has among the highest smoking prevalence in the world, ranking ninth in the world for smoking amongst adult males (47.7%) and sixteenth for adult females (9%). Statistics from the country’s department of health and the WHO show that about 10 Filipinos die every hour from tobacco-related illness, including lung cancer and stroke.

Former Philippine health and finance officials, including Alberto Romualdez and Esperanza Cabral, both former secretaries of the Department of Health, along with other well-known public figures issued a position paper on Wednesday advocating a restructuring of the country’s current excise tax — what they call a reform on “sin tax” — which would effectively raise taxes on alcohol and tobacco products.

The officials quoted figures from a 2009 Family Income and Expenditure Survey, conducted by the country’s national statistics office, which shows that the poorest households spend more on tobacco than education and health, a problem they say will be mitigated with higher taxes making cigarettes more expensive. In countries like Thailand and Singapore, taxes make up about 70% of the retail price of cigarettes, while this number is about 40% in the Philippines.

But there is also an argument put forward by organizations like the Philippine Tobacco Institute that boosting agriculture – including tobacco farming – will create more jobs and boost the overall domestic economy.

The show will be held at the Philippine International Convention Center, one of Manila’s largest venues, and organizers have suggested they have at least some support from the local government. Although there’s been a ban on smoking in public areas in the Philippines, including government facilities, public transport, schools and parks, since last year, the local government has issued a waiver to the organizers allowing smoking in the show venue, according to ProTobEx.

Attempts to reach ProTobEx and Inter-tabac Asia were unsuccessful Thursday.

Groups like the Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance have called on Philippines President Benigno Aquino III not to attend or support the event. According to a letter uploaded by Inter-tabac to its website, Mr. Aquino sent a message of support to the expo’s organizers, referring to the event as one that will “benefit [their] respective economies and peoples.”

Critics, however, say that the apparent support for such conferences highlights the weakness and lack of regulation around tobacco usage which they say is damaging to the overall health of the country, regardless of the economics involved.

“It is disturbing that the expo is held in the Philippines. This indicates the weakness of tobacco industry regulation,” said Dr. Ulysses Dorotheo, project director of the Southeast Asian Tobacco Control Alliance. “We should send the industry a strong message: health is more important than trade.”

Other countries in Southeast Asia have angered health groups across the world for relatively lax rules on tobacco control. In Indonesia, where cigarette advertising is still allowed, the Jakarta Globe recently reported that an 8-year-old boy was found smoking two packs of cigarettes a day. The country’s child protection commission accused the government of failing to regulate the tobacco industry, where there is no minimum age for buying or smoking cigarettes.

About Southeast Asia Real Time

Indonesia Real Time provides analysis and insight into the region, which includes Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and Brunei. Contact the editors at SEAsia@wsj.com.

E-commerce sites and mobile apps are drawing on data they’ve collected from users to better understand how and when people shop during the Islamic holy month. Here’s a look at some of what they’ve discovered.

All that burning rubbish in Indonesia may be taking its toll, with nearly a quarter of people surveyed in a recent poll saying waste management was the most prominent environmental issue in the country.